The AALS Nominating Committee for 2026 Officers and Members of the Executive Committee recommends the following accomplished teacher-scholars and highly capable volunteers for positions on the AALS Executive Committee. The Committee will present these nominees to the AALS House of Representatives for election this fall. The candidates will be confirmed at the yearly meeting of the House of Representatives, which takes place during the AALS Annual Meeting in January.
Nominee for President-Elect
Kevin K. Washburn is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He previously served as dean at the University of New Mexico School of Law (2009-2012) and the University of Iowa College of Law (2018-2024).
A member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and an expert in federal Indian law and policy, he is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma (BA) and Yale Law School (JD). Before joining the legal academy, he was a law clerk to William C. Canby, Jr., on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an attorney for the US Department of Justice, a federal prosecutor in Indian Country in New Mexico, and General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. In 2012, Professor Washburn was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs at the US Department of the Interior. In this position, he oversaw the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and several other federal offices responsible for tribal nations policy. He served in that position through the end of 2015. He took a brief leave from his Iowa deanship in late 2020 to serve as the captain of the Department of the Interior team during the Biden-Harris presidential transition.
Professor Washburn began his teaching career at the University of Minnesota Law School in 2002. He also served for a year as the Oneida Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and as the Rosenstiel Professor of Law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.
Professor Washburn has taught and published casebooks focusing on federal Indian law and the law of gaming and gambling. He is the co-editor-in-chief of Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law. He has authored more than 30 articles and book chapters on federal criminal justice in Indian country, Indian gaming, and other issues relevant to federal Indian law, as well as many op-eds and essays for legal periodicals.
For more than 20 years, Professor Washburn has helped draft criminal law and procedure questions for the Multistate Bar Exam and the Next Gen Bar Exam for the National Conference of Bar Examiners. He has won several awards for leadership and excellence in governmental service, as well as for contributions to Indian Law. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Law School Admission Council and was its Chair during the COVID-19 pandemic. He previously served on the ABA Accreditation Committee, and he is a former member of the AALS Deans’ Steering Committee.
Nominees for Executive Committee
Richard E. Moberly is the Dean and Richard C. & Catherine S. Schmoker Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law. He holds a BA from Emory University, summa cum laude, and a JD from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Before joining the legal academy, he clerked for N. Carlton Tilley, Jr., United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina. He later practiced law at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dean Moberly is an expert in whistleblower protection and the law of secrecy. He joined the University of Nebraska College of Law faculty in 2004, serving as Associate Dean for Faculty and reaching full professorship in 2012. He served as interim dean before being appointed dean in 2017. He also served as the University’s Interim Executive Vice Chancellor from June 2019 to March 2020.
Dean Moberly has written numerous books, chapters, and scholarly articles focused on whistleblowing and evidence, including several important works on Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation claims. He has spoken internationally on whistleblower protection and also co-edited The International Handbook on Whistleblower Research. He was appointed twice to the OSHA Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee by the US Secretary of Labor.
At the University of Nebraska College of Law, Dean Moberly was voted Professor of the Year twice. Additionally, he was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award and the College Distinguished Teaching Award. Dean Moberly is a member of the American Law Institute. The Nebraska State Bar Association awarded Moberly the President’s Professionalism Award in 2016 for his work to promote the practice of law in rural areas of the State. In 2019, Dean Moberly received the Warren K. Urbom Mentor Award from the Robert Van Pelt Inns of Court for his “contributions to the ideals of ethics, civility, professionalism, and legal skills.”
His affiliation with AALS began in 2006, when he served on the executive committee of the Section on New Law Professors, and continues today with his participation on the Deans’ Steering Committee. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the AALS Ad Hoc Committee on Rural Access to Justice, has chaired the Program Committee for the 2024 Annual Meeting, and served on the Arc of Career Planning Committee for the 2025 Annual Meeting. Dean Moberly also serves on the American Bar Association Data Collection Advisory Group.
Elizabeth Kronk Warner has been the Jefferson B. & Rita E. Fordham Presidential Dean and Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah since 2019. She is also an enrolled citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. She holds a JD from the University of Michigan and a BS from Cornell University. Before she joined the legal academy, she practiced with Troutman Sanders LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP in Washington, D.C.
Dean Kronk Warner joined the legal academy in 2006 as an Assistant Professor at the University of Montana School of Law, where she taught civil procedure, Indian, and environmental law, and co-directed the American Indian Summer Law Program. She later taught at Texas Tech University School of Law before moving to the University of Kansas School of Law in 2012. There, she served as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, was Director of the Tribal Law and Government Center, and supervised the Tribal Judicial Support Clinic in addition to her teaching and scholarship.
Since 2008, Dean Kronk Warner has also served in a variety of judicial roles for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation District Court and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Court of Appeals. She has co-authored multiple books and has published over 15 book chapters, 50 law reviews and journal articles, articles in other legal periodicals, amicus briefs, and court opinions. She has won several awards for excellence in teaching, from the Federal Bar Association, Utah Business Magazine, and Sundance Film Festival.
Dean Kronk Warner has a long-standing relationship with AALS. She is the chair of the AALS Deans Steering Committee and has served on the planning committee for the annual Deans Forum. She is a former chair of the AALS Member Review Committee and a site visitor. She was a member of the Dignity Rights Committee for the American Bar Association. She formerly held many positions with the Federal Bar Association, including two terms on its board of directors. She has also held several positions at the Law School Admission Council, where she is currently a trustee.